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Topic: Robot that can play a guitar? (Read 4866 times)

our group has planned on pursuing this project and we're planning to propose this as our undergraduate thesis. we're planning to create a robot that can play a guitar independently, wherein you just need to input chords, musical scores or tabs in your program then the robot will be able to play it. this robot will be able to play basic major and minor guitar chords and can do both strumming and plucking. I just want to hear comments from you guys. what do u think of this project? also how should we implement this and what necessary devices, motors, things we will be needing in making this? what can be the significance and future applications of making this project? what kind of program can we use here? and what kind of controller device do we need? thank you in advance... i would to ask you, what would you think will be the real essence of doing this project? the significance and importance of doing this?

Thats a neat idea. I think it would be possible. I cant really help you to much with the technical stuff as that REAALLY isnt my area, but I can toss an idea or two out. If the playing of the guitar doesn't work out, You could always haxor an old guitar tuner into the bot, make it tune your guitar instead of play it, or on top of playing it

As a one time musician, I must bring up the point, Can a machine really replicate the heart and soul that goes into playing an instrument like guitar? Thats my question for you But hey, if cats can play piano, why cant bots play guitar

hey,, this is awsome if its dont correctly,, nice project to choosehere are some thoughts

right hand: to make the bot able to play some hard complicated classical note then its either you make one super fast picker,or 5 pickers(like fingers)i dont know what approach you're goin for but i would recommend you the first one as it easier to build.

about the left hand:here you surely need five fingers to hold some complicated chords

strumming:this is the easiest thing i guess ,, you just pass the picker at all strings while holding a chordbut make sure to have some smooth pass,, not to cut the stringsyou can make this by using a servo and a low torque one would be better.

soloing: 1/hold the string using the left hand2/pick it using the right hand pickerrepeat this in a loop

you can do more than holding and picking only one string at a time.

i guess the hardest thing in this is building the left hand and they way you should move its fingersas each finger should have a corresponding motor i guess,, steppers would do here as the guitar frets are just steps

thanks for the comment. more or less, we have similar ideas on making this one. and i agree that the left hand part is harder than the strumming part. Although, for the strumming part, i still find some problems like if you do a particular strumming pattern, like down down down up up, if a solenoid is installed their with a pick, the pick should be lifted so that it wont produce the upward motion when a down motion is triggered, and must continue the downward motion again. I thought of using 2 doube acting solenoids for the strumming part, to solve this problem. is this solution justifiable? do you have other solutions for this? thanks again..

that would be another topic i assume...haha..we are also planning to integrate the tuning part to our project but only after we made and perfected the playing part. that one is reserved for the latter part..hehe

a ok ok..you got a point.. do you have other suggestions on how to do this project? maybe in the field of programming, other components you can suggest in the mechanical and electronics field of this project? and what do you think can this project bring? meaning what is the significance of making this, th importance or the application of this? thanks...

sorry for the double postings..im not really sure at first where to post this query..haha.because this project needs all those disciplines.. anyway, whats your location? and how can i order from you? what other things can you suggest regarding the electronics, mechanical and programming field of this project? any other suggestions on what components to use?

I'm a guitarist, and I don't recommend implementing different strumming styles at this point. (like reggae or swing) I recommend you stick to the KISS principle here. The chords would just look at the guitar strings/frets as like multidimensional arrays or vectors, and then just fill them with boolean bits. But make sure there are no more than 4 boolean bits, and they can't be too far apart for a hand. =D

for the strumming, don't worry about rhythm or style, just do pluck or no pluck for an array from 0-5

can you elaborate on the KISS principle? im not very familiar with it. i only know the basics of playing a guitar but not very good at it. so your saying that we should implement one strumming style only? we're not actually gonna do a robot hand..but more of a mechanical hand composed of solenoids. and we want to focus more on the strumming part coz we havent seen any existing guitar robots that can do strumming, then we'l follow up on the plucking...

sorry for the triple post, i not sure where to place my topic that's why i have multiply posts..anyway, may i ask, what components, materials, devices do i need for this project? what king of motors to use, kind of controllers? any suggestions? and how much each of those cost? thanks..

ok ok..thanks.. btw, may i ask..what other kind of mechanism or any other idea for the strumming part? another thing, what kind of design should we implement for this project? i mean the structure of this robot? thanks

robotwannabe, I recommend sitting down with pencil/paper (or even better, use CAD) and just try out various designs. Designing your own robot is a skill you need to ummm . . . build robots

Besides, a design is much more useful than a parts list - if I say buy 3 resistors and a capacitor, that has zero meaning to you! What you really need is a design, and the parts list is simple to determine after that . . .